Swords and Stilettos
by sugarcoatedsarcasm
Summary: How did Silena Beauregard come to Camp Half-Blood? How did Luke manipulate her into becoming a spy for Kronos? How did Silena meet Charles? Her life story of love, loss, and of course, high heels and attitude.
1. Attacked

"Silena! Over here!"

My best friend, Amelie Weber was waving me over.

"Hey Mellie, what's-" I didn't have the chance to finish my greeting, because she frantically hissed under her breath, "You have to walk down the graduation hall with Nathan. Belismo."

"Well, I knew that already. Our last names are alphabetically next to each other." I replied, unaffected.

"Yeah, but look at him!" Mellie said. "He's so...weird!"

We both turned and looked at him. Nathan Belismo was the new kid at our school this year. From day one he was immediately classed as 'social  
suicide'. He walked awkwardly, with an almost clip-clopping motion, and he had terrible acne. During lunch, his food was all vegan, and he had always looked at his sodapop can hungrily. Even now, Nathan was looking at an aluminum can with an expression on his face that screamed "I want to eat that soda can really badly."

"Whatever, Mel. Let it go. Are you still coming to my house for the after-grad party?"

This was my graduation from elementary school. My dad had thought it was a big deal, so he was throwing me a chocolate themed graduation party.

"Of course I'm still coming!" She said, offended that I had ever doubted in the first place.

"Everybody, line up with your walking partner!" Ms. Pearson said.

"Bye" I whispered to Mellie, then we parted ways as I made my way up to the front of the line, and she walked down to the back of the line.

Nathan smiled when he saw me, and looked a little scared.

"Hi Silena," he said shyly.

"Hey Nathan, how's it going?" I asked, not unkindly.

"So, there's this place that I go in the summer, and do you want to go with me?" he asked, in a rush.

"What place?" I asked back, just to be polite. I probably wasn't going to go. Mellie and I had already planned what we were going to do this summer. We were going to go to equestrian camp together, since both of us loved riding horses.

"It's a camp, on Long Island. In New York."

Now I was interested. My eyes grew wide as I stated, "You mean New York as in the fashion center of the United States?"

Mrs. Pearson chose that exact moment to blow her shrill whistle. "Quiet down!" she thundered. "We are going to start walking now." My classmates in front of me began walking, and Nathan and I followed.

After an hour or so, everyone had received their diplomas and they were just scattered about and socializing. My father was talking to Anna and George, Mellie's parents, and I was talking to Mellie, herself.

"So Nathan invited me to this camp during the summer." I told her.

"Ew, that is so pathetic. He just likes you, like every other guy in this school." Mellie replied.

I hit her gently on the arm. "That is so not true!"

"Oh my god, Silena! Look who's walking over here," Mellie's voice dropped in excitement.

When I turned to see who it was, a tingle ran down my spin. It was Gabriel, only the hottest guy of our year, and the guy I had a crush on. I spun around to Mellie, and asked, "Mel! Do I look okay?"

"Relax," she replied, "you look fine."

I felt a finger tap my shoulder. I twirled around prettily and smiled.

"Oh, hey Gabe," I greeted, pretending to be surprised, "how are you?"

"I'm fine. What time does your party start again?" he questioned.

"6:30. Don't forget that it's semi-formal!" I stated.

"Wouldn't miss it, Silena." he replied.

Just then, my father walked up. "Ready to go girls?"

We nodded, and I waved goodbye to Gabe. Mellie said goodbye to her mom and dad.

"The maids should have already set up the party area, and I made the chocolates yesterday. Everything should be ready, darling." My father informed me during the car ride back home.

"Thank you daddy." I smiled at him.

When we reached our destination, I grabbed Mellie's hand and led her into my bedroom.

"What should I wear?" I asked her. "Gabriel Demikov is going to be there! It has to be amazing."

"I know!" she squealed. "He's so hot!"

Mel shed her graduation gown and put on her dress that she had brought to my house a couple of days ago. Her dress was a pale ice blue that complimented her eyes and offset her light blonde hair perfectly. The dress had glittered decorations in gold, and the straps of it were of the same threaded gold color. It fell to her knees, and ended on a slant.

"My god, Mel! You should take an ugly pill or something. You're so gorgeous!" I complimented.

"Lena, you should wear the coral pink dress that you have." she said. "And pair it with your silver bow flats and your white gold coated Tiffany necklace. It's simple elegance!"

In a flash, I put on what she told me. The coral of the dress and the simplicity of the design worked well with the silver accessories.

"Your a genius Mel. Let me do your hair in return, so I don't owe you one."

She grinned and sat down on the bed. I grabbed my hair curler from my bathroom, along with a couple of blue and gold bobby pins and a hand mirror. I brushed through her hair, curled it slightly, then pulled back the two sides with the pins. Mellie studied herself in the mirror and grinned.

"It looks amazing Lenny." she said, still turning her head back and forth, admiring her hair.

"Hold up the mirror for me," I asked her.

Mellie complied.

I twisted my hair back with a couple of complicated motions, and clipped it together with black bobby pins. Reaching over, I grabbed a silvery white flower that my father gave me before we left for graduation, and threaded it into the up-do.

"What's the name of that flower?" Mellie wondered out loud.

"I think it's called moon lace. My dad gave it to me."

Mellie put down the mirror. Just then, the doorbell rang. Looking at each other excitedly, we knew what the other was thinking. The first person had arrived!

Quickly, we made our way downstairs.

"Hey Ava!" I said. "Your the first person to come-"

I was cut off by the doorbell. Soon, almost everybody was here. Laughter and conversation filled the room, and our guests were happily dipping fruit into the chocolate fountains, taste testing different truffles and candies, making their own chocolate lollipops, and doing other chocolate related activities. I smiled to myself. This party was a success.

"Hey again." A familiar voice said from behind me as warm hands covered my eyes.

"Hey yourself." I replied back.

"Guess who I am?" the voice asked.

"Gabe." I said immediately.

"Aw, how'd you know?" he asked.

"Who else would it be?" I quipped.

"Come on," he said mysteriously. "I have something to show you."

Gabe covered my eyes again, and led me somewhere.

"Where are you bringing me? It's my house, you know." I giggled out.

My laughter, however, was cut short as I heard a rumbling growl. Something sharp, like claws, started pressing into my head where human hands and finger nails used to be. Gabe's, no not Gabe, something else's hands were squeezing my head, tighter and tighter, and those claws pressed harder and harder until I thought they were going to draw blood. I reacted with the typical eleven-year-old reaction.

I screamed bloody murder.

I heard a door crash open and my father's voice gasping, "Silena!"

The pressure on my head wasn't decreasing, and spots appeared before my eyes. Soon, I grew limp, and gave in to peaceful darkness.


	2. Camp HalfBlood

I drifted in and out of consciousness, each awakening lulled back by an overwhelming tiredness. Once or twice, I awoke to conversation. The darkness consumed again and again.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" a voice asked. To me, the voice sounded vaguely goat like.

"Feed her some more nectar, Grover," another voice said. This one seemed more tired, older, deeper than this Grover person's voice.

A warm liquid, that tasted like my father's truffles trickled its way through my lips and down my throat. Slowly, my eyes blinked open. I was staring a a wooden ceiling, which could have been the ceiling for a cabin or something. I had just focused my eyes when a face appeared over head, obscuring the beam that I had been focusing on.

"She's awake Chiron!" Grover, I assumed, said over excitedly.

"I can see that Grover, and now, I suggest you move your head." Just in time, Grover moved his head. In the next second, I sat up really fast.

"Augh..." I groaned. My vision grew blurry for a moment, and I clutched my head. "My head hurts..." Once my vision cleared, I looked up. A gangly boy, who slightly resembled Nathan stood before me. Next to him sat a man in a wheelchair with facial hair.

"Who are you? Where am I?" I asked, bewildered.

"I'm Grover! Hi! I'm a-" Grover said, still obviously very excited.

"Your a what?" I asked, curious to know why I wasn't around anyone I knew. "And where's my daddy?" I demanded.

"Well you see," I turned my head to look at 'Chiron', who had begun to talk. "You are a half-blood, or a demigod, so to speak. A demigod is a person who is half mortal, and half god. Greek god, that is."

I looked at him, shocked. I turned back to Grover, who now seemed more reasonable than Chiron, who was apparently talking nonsense.

"It's true!" Grover added on.

I groaned again. They were all crazy. Was this a crazy house? Did they think I was going crazy and sent me to an asylum?

"Your missing a parent, are you not?" Chiron asked me.

"Yeah, my mom. Why do you want to know?" I said defensively. "And why is there a man with curly black hair and a laurel on top of his head in a neon purple track suit and orange leopard print Nikes standing in the corner of the room?"

The guy spoke up. "I'm Mr. D. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, blah blah blah, I'm camp leader, anyways welcome Serena." He sighed out, like he wished this was something he didn't have to do.

"Are you Dionysis? Why are you guarding a camp? And it's Silena!" I asked, bewildered and hoping my guess was right.

"Punishment, some boring stuff, anyways I'm here now." he droned in the same tone of voice.

"Well, she was probably your Greek god parent." Chiron said, continuing on like nothing happened, and nothing he was saying was of any subsequence. "You were attacked by Gabe. He was a trickster, a demon who escaped Hades and was attracted to your 'scent'."

I sat, stunned.

"Grover," Chiron said, "bring her to the Hermes cabin."

This shocked me out of my reverie.

"But I thought Hermes was a guy!" I thought for a minute, scrunching up my nose. In history class, what had that dull teacher said? That was the day that Gabe asked me to borrow a pencil. I shuddered at the thought of Gabe, who I now knew was a monster. And to think I thought he was actually hot! _'Think past him, to what was on the board._' I thought to myself. Hermes, the god of messengers. The GOD of messengers.

"And you said that my Greek god parent was a girl!" I protested.

Chiron here confirmed my thoughts. "Yes, you're correct, Hermes is a male. But because your Greek god parentage has not been revealed yet, you will stay with the Hermes cabin, because he is also the god of thieves and travelers."

Grover waved his hand over at me and said, "Come on Silena, let's go!"

I tentatively shifted my weight and placed my feet on the floor when I suddenly thought of something. "Where's my stuff?"

Chiron again replied to my question. "Your father said someone named Amelie helped him pack your things, and sent your luggage to the Hermes cabin."

I stood after some effort. Grover was in front of me, already hop walking awkwardly away. I followed, behind him by some paces.

"Grover! Wait!" Grover slowed, and looked behind him. Before I could stop myself, I asked, "Why do you walk so funny? Like you're galloping or something."

He laughed, which sounded more like a whinny, and informed me, "It's because I'm a satyr. I'm half goat."

Grover kicked off his shoes. "See?" he presented his feet, no, his hooves to me.

My eyes grew wide. "That's so weird. You remind me of this guy Nathan at my school."

As we continued walking, he said, "That's 'cause he was a satyr, too! Camp Half-blood, that's what this place is called, sends out satyrs to schools and places where the gods think there's going to be a half-blood."

"Wait, so he was sent specially to stalk me?" I asked, slightly offended that my privacy had been abused like that.

Grover flushed. "No, it's not like that! I-"

"Grover, relax, I was just kidding." I sent an affable smile his way.

Looking around me, I held in my questions about the strange activities going on. I spotted horse stables, and grew excited. However, before I could ask if we could ride horses here, Grover stopped.

"Here's the Hermes cabin!" he presented, slight pride in his voice.

"It's...nice." I glanced around me. The other cabins seemed cleaner. The Hermes cabin was a bit run down, and a with the evening breeze, caught the scent of unwashed socks and body odor. Crinkling my nose, I sucked it up, and opened the door. Stepping instead hesitantly, I was stunned by the mess. There were sleeping beds everywhere, because there weren't enough bunks for everyone. Belongings were spread everywhere, and two boys who looked quite alike were fighting over an orange t-shirt. I sighed, but brightened considerably when I saw my pink Coach luggage sitting off to the side of the room. Squealing, I ran over to my belongings and touched them.

Grover had trailed behind me, and over my shoulder he announced, "It's time for dinner guys!"

He walked out of the cabin, and I followed his lead. The two boys that had been fighting over the t-shirt walked up and sandwiched me in between them.

"What's up new girl?" the one on my left said.

"Yea, what's crackin'?" the one on my right said.

"I'm Travis-," the one on the left said again.

"-and I'm Connor," Connor replied.

Together, they said, "We're the Stoll brothers, prankster extraordinaries!"

Each one of them grabbed one of my hands, and pulled me along to the Hermes cabin table. On the bench, there was only room for one person. When I tried to pull my hands away from their grip, I found that I couldn't.

"You super glued your hands to me?!" I shrieked.

Connor and Travis were grinning victoriously.

"Let's sit over there!" Travis suggested, pointing to the end of the table, where the table was the dirtiest.

Giving them both dirty looks that rivaled the table, I forced them to sit down before me. Out of nowhere, plates and goblets appeared before us.

"Stand up, Silena." The brothers said in unison.

I ignored them pointedly, but after some time, they managed to pull me up and off the bench. Travis picked up my plate, and dumped it into the fire.

"Hey!" I protested, breaking my silence, "I'm starving, and you just throw my food into the fire?"

"It's an offering for the gods silly Silena!" Connor said.

They brought, more like dragged, me back to the table, then gave a small portion of their food to the fire, too.

Conner said to Travis, "Bon appetit!" They continued on the shovel they're food disgusingly into their mouthes.

I was trying not to cry. They were so mean! Just when my tears were about to overflow, I felt a warmness sweep over my body. Gasps and whispers echoed about the mess hall, and a couple of kids pointed over my head. One table, in particular, looked happy. I looked up, and saw that there was a pink dove floating on top of my head.

A boy walked over from the table that looked happy.

"Hello, darling!" He greeted me. "Welcome to the Aphrodite cabin! I'm your cabin leader, James Andrew. You can come sit with us now, over there. What's your name?"

At this, I promptly bursted into tears. "I c-can't," I hiccuped while sobbing. I nodded my head at the two boys around me. "They superglued me to them!"

Connor and Travis looked a bit awestruck and guilty.

"Aw, sweetie. Don't cry," James comforted. He shot a look at the two boys. Out of his pocket, as if it appeared like magic, came a bottle of glue dissolvent. He applied the bottle's contents onto my hand, and after a minute of tugging, my right hand separated from Travis'. Then, James applied the solution on my left hand, and that hand came free, too.

"That'll probably be the last time you ever hold the hand of an Aphrodite girl," James said darkly. He then walked away. I followed, looking back at them. Feeling a little bad, I mouthed, "Sorry!" Hurrying after James, I came to a stop next to the Aphrodite table.

Their table was still clean, neat, and white. Two girls slid over, and made room for me to sit between them.

The girl on my left was extremely beautiful. She had pale blonde hair, and glittery blue eyes that popped.

"Hi, I'm Amanda," she stated, smiling prettily. She looked about to be a couple years older than me, perhaps 16, or 17.

"I'm Silena," I told her, and smiled back.

"And I'm Hazel," the girl on my other side chimed in. Her voice sounded like bells. Hazel seemed closer to my age.

I smiled at her, and asked her, "When did you come to Camp Half-Blood?"

"Just a year ago," she answered. "And it was nowhere near how dramatic your entrance was," she said, eyes glittering with the prospect of gossip.

On the other hand, I was mortified. "People were talking about me?"

"Oh yeah, the whole camp was talking about it. You really set this year's camp off with a bang!" Hazel enthused.

I groaned, for about the millionth time today. "I really wish I wasn't in the center of attention."

"Well," Amanda chimed from one side, "We'll just make them have something to talk _about. _How about I give you a make over?"

The two words 'make over' excited me. "Really?" I asked.

"Yeah!" she answered. "We can start right after dinner. I bet the Chiron already had your luggage sent over to our cabin, so we could have you settled. Knowing Chiron, he probably did it the minute you were claimed." Amanda said, rolling her eyes at the last sentence.

"I'll help!" Hazel said loudly.

The entire table of Aphrodite girls looked over, and Amanda declared, "We're giving Silena a makeover!"

The entire table began buzzing. A makeover! Everyone wanted to help.


	3. Betrayal

Not soon enough, dinner ended. The table of Aphrodite girls, and even some guys walked back to the cabin. I chatted with Hazel the whole walk back. She reminded me of Mellie.

The doors of the cabin opened. My face cracked into a huge smile. My luggage was here, and it was in a cabin that didn't smell, and wasn't overcrowded.

James, one of the guys that came with the girls, pointed to an unoccupied bed pretty far from the cabin's entrance. "There's your bunk."

A bunch of girls dragged my pink suitcases over to my bunk and opened the largest suitcase first. They rifled through my bag, looking for something 'appropriate' for me to wear tomorrow.

I didn't have the opportunity to see what they had picked out, because Amanda led me over to a large styling mirror in the back of the cabin. They sat me down in the chair, and each one of the girls did something in some way.

One girl was giving me a manicure, and another a pedicure. A girl with big curls began to work on my hair. Some other girls examined my face, skin tone, eye color, and asked me what sized clothing I wore.

Amanda looked on in approval.

"Lights out!" James called at exactly 9:30.

'The girls', as I have come to call the Aphrodite girls, all complained, but soon began to give me advice on how to sleep in order to prevent early wrinkles.

At 10 o'clock, the lights shut off. Everyone was already in bed, in order to have the required 9 to 10 hours of sleep.

The next morning, the girls dolled me up again.

I swear, they never slept. They always hovered, and examined my every move.

I put on the outfit that was laid out for me, and a girl handed me a shade of coral lip gloss. As I pocketed it, she shook her head. Then, she pointed to her lips. Hazel came up from behind me.

"This is Alice, Silena. She's our favorite mute," Hazel stated bluntly.

I waved to Alice, then twirled around for Hazel.

"How do I look?" I asked.

Hazel nodded approvingly, while Alice kept tapping her lips.

"Right!" I exclaimed. I took out the coral pink lip gloss, and swiped it over my lips lightly.

"Do you want it back?" I questioned Alice, holding the tube out for her. She moved her fingers rapidly in some pattern that I didn't recognize. All of a sudden, I realized that it was probably sign language.

"Alice says that you should keep it, and use it as needed. She also says that it's the perfect shade of color for you, and to think of the lip gloss as a welcoming gift." Hazel translated for me.

"Thanks, Alice," I smiled at her.

I turned towards Hazel, "And since when do you know sign language?"

She replied, "Alice taught me, mostly. Anyway, I heard you're a horse back rider. We can hit the Pegasus stables after breakfast."

The thought of this thrilled me.

"Well, when's breakfast?" I inquired.

"Now," Hazel said.

We walked together to the Mess Hall. As I stepped down towards our cabin's table, I turned on my charm. My 'charm' is something I recently found that I could do. All I did was think, I am beautiful, and then people seemed to gravitate towards me. Gracefully, I sat in an empty spot at our table.

The people I was sitting next to talked about fashion week in New York. I was contented to sit and listen to the lulling conversations about Marc Jacobs' scandalous designs.

"Hey," Travis said as he walked up from behind.

I glared at him. He looked pretty intimidated, but seemed to gather up enough courage to say mumble something.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm really sorry about what happened yesterday," Travis repeated.

"Uhm...It's okay, really, I guess," I replied, a little uncomfortably.

At this time, Hazel had walked behind me to tell me that breakfast was mostly over, and that we could leave. But I didn't notice till it was too late.

"What?" A voice shrieked. "You're forgiving him, just like that?"

"Yes, Hazel, I am." I retorted quietly compared with her shrieks.

"You idiot! You ruined our pla-," Hazel was cut off by Amanda's hand over her face.

"What plans?" I asked obliviously.

"We didn't have any plans, Silena," Amanda soothed, in a too sweet to really be sweet voice.

Now I was extremely frustrated.

"What plans?!" I asked again, stronger this time. I could practically feel my eyes blazing with metaphorical flames by now.

Hazel, to reciprocate against Amanda man-handling her, shouted, "We used you to get Luke to like Amanda even though she's way too old for him!"

At the mention of his name, a boy with golden hair at the Hermes table looked over. Moments later, so did a little girl, an extremely blonde little girl with stormy grey eyes.

I, however didn't notice this, as I exploded.

"You used me?" I angrily intoned. I couldn't believe this! No one uses me! Turning around, I stalked angrily off, the only intention being to leave the mess hall.

My eyes stung with unshed tears, and I blinked to keep from crying in front of everybody. Amanda and Hazel were so nice to me. I thought they were my friends. I guess I thought wrong.


	4. Sunsets

A/N: Thanks for the constructive criticism and the really nice comments! :) I haven't updated in forever, but a friend of mine told me I should. So here it is! Young Annabeth is probably OOC. Also, I probably messed up the ages a little bit. And can anyone tell me what Travis Stoll looks like? [[I do not own Percy Jackson.]]

I walked blindly off, not caring where I was going. After a couple of minutes of angry walking, I heard the sound of trickling water. Looking up, I found that I was on the bank of a lake. The lake was surrounded with dark green trees lush with summer, and I walked out onto a wooden dock. Wooden canoes and kayaks were beached on the sand in slight disarray, and across the lake there was a lone paddler pushing himself in a canoe. I sat down on the wooden dock, exhausted now that my anger had left me. I rubbed my hand on the gray eroded wood and felt the grooves under my hands.

So much had happened in the last couple of days. First, I'm thrown into a whole new world, one of demigods and magic, and learned all about my own godly parent. Now, people have already started betraying me! I collapsed onto the dock and stared up at the clouds.

"That was such a stupid move in the 'cafeteria' Silena!" I chastised myself aloud. Now, I would have no friends, and-

Interrupting my train of thought, a smooth voice asked, "Why was what a stupid move?"

I gasped, startled. Sitting up and looking behind me, I noticed the older boy, the blonde one, tugging the little girl with the piercing gray eyes.

"Luke, right?" I asked, acknowledging him, then waving at the girl.

"Yeah, it's Luke. I'm a Son of Hermes, and this is Annabeth," he said, making conversation. He gestured to the little girl he had with him when he said her name.

As I really looked at him, I realized he had a glaringly obvious scar on his face. It was raised and ridged, and it covered most of his face. Looking past the scar, I replied, "I'm Silena, a Daughter of Aphrodite."

"Don't look at his scar like that!" A high-pitched voice cut Luke off just as he was about to reply.

"Like what?" I asked Annabeth, a little startled when she spoke.

"Like... like there's something wrong with him," she succinctly said.

"But there's not, I was simply startled," I replied, not wanting to anger this girl on top of everybody else.

Annabeth looked at me appraisingly, and, letting go of Luke's hand, walked next to me and sat down on the dock. Luke sat down where he was standing.

"I know who you are," Luke grinned at me, crinkling up the edges of his scar, "I think everyone knows, now."

"Yeah..." I trailed off, deflating slightly. "I bet everyone hates me,"

"I don't hate you," Annabeth cut in.

"She's right, they probably don't hate you. It's alright, I know what it's like," Luke said. "See this scar?" he asked, pointing to his face.

I nodded, and he went on. "I had to find a Golden Apple, on a quest, at the Garden of Hesperides. I failed, and when I came back, everyone looked at me with pity. So, anyways, I know what it's like."

I smiled back at him, and said, "Well, at least you have friends." Then I asked, "Does it ever get better?"

He pondered this for a while and replied, "Yes, it does."

"How old are you? Some of the Aphrodite girls are saying how you're too old for them and stuff," I blurted, before realizing what I said.

"I'm 15," he said. "And I don't think I'd ever go out with Amanda, regardless of age. We don't connect," he said smirking a bit.

"How old are you, Annabeth?" I asked her, trying to bring her into the conversation.

"I'm nine," she replied blinking owlishly up at me. "And Amanda's mean."

"I'm liking you better and better, Annabeth," I said, smiling.

After a while, the three of us sat in a comfortable silence, staring at the lake together. The bright midday light darkened into the brilliant oranges and reds of sunset, and finally, a dark cover was thrown over the sky and stars blinked into existence. I hesitantly stated, "Thanks for being here, guys. It means a lot. But I think I should get back to my cabin now."

Luke flashed a charming smile at me, "Let's meet back here next Friday, after lunch, okay?"

I felt my face heat up, and I replied with a huge smile, "Okay!"

"Am I coming?" Annabeth demanded.

"Maybe," Luke replied. He laughed then gallantly bowed and asked, "Shall I escort you back to your cabin?"

I acted along with him, and fake gasped, "I would be honored."

Giggling, I walked with Annabeth and him all the way back to my cabin.

Before the two left, Annabeth, who had been walking in between Luke and I, squeezed my hand and wished me luck. Then the two turned and walked away.

I lingered outside of the door for a while, thinking about Luke. He was really charming, and despite his scar, he was really good looking. I hugged myself for courage, and opened the door to the Aphrodite cabin.

"Silena!" a voice shouted when I stepped inside. Knowing that it was Hazel, I ignored her and kept walking to my bunk.

"Silena!" she continued. "I wanted to say sorry, about what happened. I didn't want to help Amanda, I really didn't, please Silena! Plus, it was really only Amanda's plans, and she told me she would give me her Chanel purse if I helped her," Hazel pleaded.

"Hey Alice," I greeted the girl who was sitting on her bunk, still ignoring Hazel. Alice waved back.

"Can you teach me sign language?" I asked her. Alice nodded fervently, and began teaching me right away.

Hazel, just now getting the message, fell silent and turned away.

After a while, I motioned for Alice to stop, and I stood up and walked over to Hazel's bunk. I felt kind of guilty about the way I treated her.

Hazel sat up when she saw me coming. "I forgive you," I stated when I reached her. "But," I continued, "I don't know if I can trust you. I mean, you so willingly gave away Amanda,"

Smiling a little now, Hazel said, "I'm really sorry, I really wanted to be friends. How about I make it up to you! Tomorrow, I'll show you a place you'll really like."

"Really?" I asked, forgetting I was angry for a moment, overtaken by curiosity.

"I'll show you tomorrow!" Hazel protested.

"That's so unfair!" I squealed.

"Just wait!" Hazel said in reply, eyes twinkling with unspoken mysteries.

That night, I lay in my bed, wondering about Luke, the Son of Hermes, Annabeth, and Hazel's motives.


End file.
